Bird Names with Animal or Plant Components

Abstract

OF THE ANIMAL NAMES used in forming bird appellations, bull is by far the most popular. In general, it means 'big' and in the combination bullhead is applied to various wild ducks, for most of which it is fitting. Examples at hand pertain to the greater and lesser scaups (Fla., Ala.), ring-necked duck (Fla.), common goldeneye (Md., Va., N.C.), bufflehead (Ala.), and all of the scoters (Delaware River). Bullhead is a rather generally used cognomen for the golden, and black-bellied, plovers. The former is known too as bullhead plover (Pa., D.C., Texas, Calif., Saskatchewan), as is also the blackbreast (Conn., N.Y., N.J.), while the mountain plover is called bullhead snipe in California.